Word.ws English Dictionary

oarlessness

oarlessness noun: absence of oars.

Noun

oarlessness (uncountable)

  1. Absence of oars.
    • Only dark birds know who let it rot over itself, mirror its oarlessness and the one thin seam that suddenly like a mouth opened to allow everything oceanic in.2002, Douglas Smith, Helsinki Drift: Travel Poems, page 10
    • All that counts when Poe's gondolier loses his single oar is the idea of oarlessness.1989, Richard P. Blackmur, James T. Jones, Outsider at the Heart of Things: Essays, page 227

Origin of oarlessness

From oarless + -ness.

Questions about oarlessness

What does oarlessness mean?
Oarlessness means absence of oars.
What part of speech is oarlessness?
Oarlessness is a noun.

Words near oarlessness in the dictionary

  1. oarhole
  2. oarholes
  3. oaring
  4. oaritis
  5. oarless
  6. oarlessness
  7. oarlike
  8. oarlock
  9. oarlocks
  10. oarlop
  11. oarlops

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: oarlessness (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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